


Darling It's Better Down Where It's Wetter

by canis_m



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, Massage, OctoHannibal, Seduction, Tentacles, Unorthodox Therapy, Weird Biology, merman will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:49:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9083017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: Mer-Will consults a doctor about an injury, and gets more from the treatment than he bargained for.





	

The entrance to the secluded cave was dark. Will swam up to it slowly, then balked at the mouth, treading water with arms and fins. Pain tightened the motions of his right arm, shortening his strokes; the journey from the far side of the reef had taxed him. He peered into the darkness, uncertain, then called to the interior of the cave.

"Doctor?"

"Come in," came the answering call. It was a male voice, with an accent foreign to Will's ear. Will swam on, into the shadowed entrance. The passage opened to a vast, brighter chamber, irregularly round in shape. Crowns of staghorn coral branched from the rocky walls, interspersed with lamps of glowing sea-fire. At the apex of the chamber's roof was an aperture. More light poured through it, illuminating the center of the cave, where a figure stood. 

A figure with not fins, but legs. Far too many of them.

Will halted. He nearly recoiled. He'd heard of cecaelians, but had never laid eyes on one before. From the waist up, the doctor looked like any merman--broad-shouldered, muscular and lean--but where the lower body of a fish should've been, the tentacles of an octopus spread instead, lined with circular suckers. As Will stared, the tentacles changed color, from solid black to barred. The contrast was striking.

The cecaelian doctor studied Will as Will studied him. The planes of his face were angular, his eyes opaque and strange. 

"And you are?" he asked.

Will shook off his shock with a twitch of his fins. "My name's Will. Jack sent me. I'm with the Barrier Guard. Or was, until I got stabbed with a harpoon."

The doctor's gaze shifted to Will's shoulder, to the lurid, knotted scar.

"It hasn't healed right--I can barely swim, can't use a spear." Will hesitated. "Jack thought you might be able to help."

"Perhaps," the doctor said. His tentacles shifted; one of them patted the sandy floor near where he stood. "Come closer, and let me have a look."

*

Hannibal examined Will's injury, then led him through a set of exercises that might serve his healing. A course of massage seemed in order, too. For therapeutic purposes.

"You should have come to me much sooner," he chided, speaking to Will from behind. "When the wound was fresh."

The merman--scarcely out of boyhood, to judge by the soft sweetness of his features, undisguised by the scanty beard--gave a low groan. He had swallowed all sound when Hannibal began his ministrations, but now his jaw hung slack and his eyes were shut. He let the noises come. 

It pleased Hannibal. He kneaded harder, both hands working the muscles of the mangled shoulder while his tentacles held and stretched Will's arm. Drawing pain and tension out, leaving heat and ease in their wake.

"I'm a better surgeon than whatever butcher left you in this condition," he added. "I could've prevented much of the damage we must now try to undo."

Another sound escaped Will's throat, neither denial nor admission. His head lolled. One of Hannibal's other tentacles was snaking upward, errant, seeking the sway of dark curls where they floated over the boy's nape. Hannibal tucked it back, the naughty thing--though who could blame it?--then reconsidered. At length he allowed it to slip around Will's waist, as if to hold him steady in position, along the seam where skin gave way to scales. 

Will offered no resistance. If anything, his body sank into the embrace. His lower half resembled that of a steelhead: gleaming silver, stippled with dark speckles like a smattering of beauty marks. A blush had appeared along his lateral line as Hannibal massaged him, faint at first, now deepening to salmon pink.

A hitch in Will's breath betrayed awareness of the spawning flush. Hannibal hushed him, firming his grasp before Will could flinch or pull away.

"It's a natural response in one your age. No need to be shy."

"Sorry," mumbled Will.

"No need for 'sorry,' either. Unless you're pledged to a mate?"

"No, I...there's no one."

Hannibal murmured delighted disapproval, and wrapped more of himself more firmly around Will. He spoke into the pretty seashell curl of Will's ear. "Do the mer tribe not have eyes?"

"I'm not--very sociable?" Will gulped a breath as Hannibal coiled one tentacle around the base of his caudal fin. Two more slid down his body, one on each side, caressing the length of him from waist to tail. Hannibal abandoned all pretense of working on the shoulder and spread his hands across Will's chest. He fingered both rosy nipples, circling them in teasing whorls.

A shudder swept through Will. His fins trembled, and then he pressed back hard against Hannibal's front. His hands gripped at Hannibal's, not to pry them off but to clutch them close. 

"What, what about you?" he asked.

"I am as you find me, all alone."

Will peered back over his shoulder, a little wild-eyed, straining to look Hannibal in the face. "Is it true, about cecaelians? That you--that you eat your--"

"It's the females among us who are cannibals, inclined to devour their mates," said Hannibal. He nuzzled Will's temple, mouthed the curve of his jaw. His tentacles clung and kissed. The taste receptors on their suckers savored Will in every place they touched; the taste was exquisite. "A good argument for keeping company with gentlemen, don't you think?"

*

They floated together, after, amid the haze of Will's spilled milt. Hannibal hugged Will with all his arms, holding fast, when Will would've squirmed and used his tail to push them away from the cloud. It didn't smell bad, exactly, but it was mortifying--the scent would linger in the water, enclosed within the cave. Unable to escape, Will ducked his face into Hannibal's shoulder.

"Sorry," he said, muffled. "For making a mess in your den."

Hannibal stroked his head and neck, his back and shoulders, the span of his quivering fins. The touches were everywhere, not overwhelming now, but soothing. One tentacle found its way back to Will's vent, under his pelvic fin, and rubbed sweetly along the slit.

"I hope you'll do it again," Hannibal said.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the culprits in [this post](http://unicornmagic.tumblr.com/post/155003493924/emungere-damnslippyplanet-emungere#notes), and the peculiar habits of the Large Pacific Striped Octopus. ^^;


End file.
